Student Lawyer, September 1997

Welcome to the 1997-98 school year! If you are a first-year law student, you are learning how to balance the personal and professional areas of your life along with the constant pressures of law school. For returning students, I hope the summer gave you the opportunity to recharge your batteries and prepare for the upcoming school year.

We are all in the formative years of our legal careers. The decisions we make today about our experience in law school will shape our professional lives for many years to come. As future lawyers, we will be the guardians of our nation's precious liberties. To do so, we must offer our skills and services generously to further the public good. In an era in which the reputation of the legal community is under intense scrutiny and criticism, we must make decisions today to help reverse that trend for those who follow. In short, we must behave with an ethic of community, not individuality.

The Law Student Division is the premiere organization for law student professional development and offers you the forum to begin your journey as a lawyer. One of the best investments you can make is to join and be active in the American Bar Association's Law Student Division. This promises to be an exciting year for the Law Student Division, as we will be addressing a number of important student issues. First, law school demographics indicate an increase in the enrollment of "non-traditional" students. To continue to be true to our goal of being the national representative of law students, we must inventory our efforts to date in serving non-traditional students and formulate strategies to address areas of need.

Another issue of great concern to many in legal education is the recent activity in the affirmative action arena and its impact on minority admissions. The rich diversity that we enjoy within the Law Student Division should be celebrated and nurtured, not squelched by recent setbacks in achieving worthy goals. We hope that by increasing the awareness of diversity issues, we can be influential in reversing what has developed into a nationwide trend.

Finally, the area of public interest is of great concern to the division. We should not just parade behind the banner of public interest in support, but espouse the very essence of community service and practice it as flag-bearers. To this end, we will continue our efforts on three very successful Law Student Division programs: Work-A-Day, Volunteer Income Tax Assistance and the Outreach Assistance Initiative. In addition, we will focus on regional programming and highlighting successful strategies for increasing public interest activity on your campus.

I remember quite vividly picking up the Student Lawyer for the first time and looking over at the list of Board of Governors members (on the next page). I wondered who these people were, and why they were involved in the Law Student Division. I have learned from my service as Student Bar Association section representative and vice president, and through previous leadership roles within the Law Student Division, that the answer is simply this: They are people who enjoy serving others. The friends I have made in the Law Student Division have shown me the dedicated, ethical, service-oriented professionals that we can all be proud to call colleagues. The decision to become active in the Law Student Division is yours, but it affects all of us. It has been said that when one dreams alone, it may be just a dream; when many dream together, it is a vision. This is my plea to you: Get involved. Be an active, positive voice for law student community development. Be part of the vision.

I look forward to seeing you at a Law Student Division function. Until then . . .

Jeffrey Jacobson
Chair, Law Student Division
Whittier Law School

September 1997 Table of Contents | Student Lawyer | Law Student Division
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